Christian or deist? The diverse faith of America's Founding Fathers

By Wendy Yurgo, Op-ed contributor Wednesday, June 17, 2026

As America approaches its 250th birthday, many Americans are rediscovering the faith of the Founding Fathers.

That rediscovery is long overdue.

For decades, Americans have been told that the Founders were largely atheists, agnostics, or secularists determined to remove religion from public life. The claim appears in classrooms, media commentary, and popular culture. It has become so commonplace that many simply accept it as fact.

The historical record says otherwise.

The men who founded the United States consistently spoke of God, Providence, prayer, morality, divine judgment, and mankind's accountability to a creator. The Declaration of Independence itself appeals to Nature's God, the Creator, the Supreme Judge of the World, and Divine Providence.

Those are not the words of atheists.

Yet an equally important question often goes unasked.

If the Founders believed in God, what did they believe about Jesus Christ?

The answer is both fascinating and revealing.

The Founders were not theological clones. They did not all share identical beliefs about Christ, salvation, the Trinity, or Scripture. Some would fit comfortably within orthodox Christianity today. Others would not.

But what they shared was something equally profound.

A soul-deep conviction that without God, the American experiment would fail.

Patrick Henry openly professed faith in Jesus Christ and declared that the Bible was worth more than all other books ever printed. Not some books. All books. Ever printed.

Samuel Adams spoke frequently of Christianity and believed public virtue rested upon biblical principles. He understood that a nation's character begins not in its laws but in its homes, its churches, and its hearts.

John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, was unapologetically Christian. He encouraged Americans to prefer Christian leaders and viewed the Christian faith not as one option among many but as the very foundation of a free and just society.

Roger Sherman, the only Founder to sign all four major founding documents, left behind a detailed statement of orthodox Christian belief affirming Christ's divinity, atoning death, and resurrection. He signed his name to the birth of a nation and to his faith in Jesus Christ with equal conviction.

Yet other Founders held different views.

Thomas Jefferson admired Jesus deeply but rejected His divinity, miracles, and resurrection. Jefferson famously produced his own version of the Gospels, removing supernatural elements while preserving Christ's moral teachings. He got the Teacher but missed the Savior.

John Adams believed strongly in God and Providence but rejected the doctrine of the Trinity.

Benjamin Franklin praised Jesus as one of the greatest moral teachers in history, though he expressed uncertainty regarding Christ's divine nature.

George Washington remains perhaps the most debated figure of all. His writings are filled with references to Providence, prayer, and divine guidance. Yet he rarely spoke explicitly about Jesus Christ, leading historians to reach differing conclusions about the depth and nature of his personal theology.

What emerges from the historical record is not a generation of atheists. What emerges is a generation on its knees.

A generation that understood its dependence upon God, His providence, His blessing, and His guidance.

A generation that understood something we have nearly forgotten.

They believed rights came from God.

They believed human beings were morally accountable.

They believed liberty required virtue.

They believed religion played an indispensable role in preserving self-government.

And most importantly, they understood that freedom without God was not freedom at all — it was chaos waiting to happen.

Modern Americans often assume the Constitution alone protects liberty. The Founders understood something deeper.

A constitution is merely words on paper unless the people themselves possess the character to sustain it.

That conviction was rooted in a biblical understanding of human nature. The Founders knew government could restrain evil. They knew laws could punish wrongdoing. But they also knew neither government nor law could transform the human heart.

Only God could do that.

And nowhere is this truth more beautifully, more powerfully, more unforgettably demonstrated than in one extraordinary moment in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787.

The Constitutional Convention was failing.

The men who had risked everything to birth a nation were watching that nation begin to fracture before their eyes. Weeks had passed. Tempers had flared. Progress had stalled. The greatest minds of a generation sat in that sweltering room unable to find their way forward.

Then an old man rose to speak.

Benjamin Franklin was 81 years old. His body was failing him. He would live only three more years. He was not an orthodox Christian. He had wrestled with theology his entire life.

But in that moment, in that room, when the American experiment hung in the balance, Benjamin Franklin did not call for another committee.

He did not propose another compromise.

He did not appeal to reason or philosophy or the great thinkers of the Enlightenment.

He called the room to prayer.

He reminded those brilliant, exhausted, fractious men that during the darkest days of the Revolutionary War they had prayed for divine protection and guidance. And that God had answered.

“And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend?” he asked.

Then he quoted Scripture: “Except the Lord build the House, they labour in vain that build it.”

Read that again.

Benjamin Franklin. The man whom skeptics most love to claim as their own. Standing before the greatest assembly of minds in American history. Quoting the Psalms. Calling a nation back to God.

If that does not move you, read it again until it does.

Whatever their individual theological differences, the Founders understood that human wisdom alone was insufficient. That pride goeth before destruction. That nations, like individuals, stand in desperate need of God's grace and guidance.

The constitution that emerged from Philadelphia would become the longest-lasting written national constitution in human history. While the average constitution survives less than two decades, ours has endured for nearly 250 years. Perhaps that should make us a little more cautious before dismissing the faith of the men who created it.

As Christians, we may wish every Founder had shared the same saving faith in Jesus Christ. History does not support that conclusion.

But history overwhelmingly supports something else.

The generation that founded America did not seek to build a nation without God.

They believed liberty was His gift.

They believed rights flowed from His hand.

They believed morality mattered because He exists and because we will one day stand before Him.

And many of them, with full conviction and without apology, proclaimed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

As America celebrates 250 years of independence, the most important lesson is not that every Founder agreed about Christ. It is that they understood something modern society is desperately, dangerously forgetting — freedom is not self-sustaining.

A free people must be a moral people.

And a moral people ultimately depend upon God.

As Psalm 33:12 reminds us: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”

America's Founders understood that truth.

They built an altar before they built a nation.

They sought God before they sought consensus.

They prayed before they signed their names to history.

The question for our generation is whether we still believe what they believed.

Whether we still possess what they possessed. Whether we are still capable of falling to our knees before we rise to meet our moment.

The answer to that question will determine everything.